Yahoo.tel Domain Name in Arbitration — Yahoo Wins

Yahoo picks up .tel domain name.

An arbitrator with National Arbitration Forum has awarded Yahoo! the Yahoo.tel domain name. Yahoo was the first major tech firm to file arbitration for a .tel domain when it filed its case back in August.

The respondent in the case did not file an official response. Instead, he challenged the authority of UDRP proceedings in Spain.

Through correspondence dated September 23, 2009, the Attorney of Respondent submitted a written communication to the National Arbitration Forum, by means of which stated party emphatically insisted that this Panel lacks of competence to rule the present case, pursuant to internal provisions of the procedural Law of the Kingdom of Spain.

Regardless of the foregoing assertion, Respondent is hereby reminded that it expressly consented to be bound to the jurisdiction of the UDRP when it executed the Registration Agreement with the Registrar implying this that Respondent is legally linked by the ARSYS INTERNET SL d/b/a NICLINE.COM registration agreement. Thus, Respondent is compelled to revise it and be properly informed of its content and implications, ahead of making pointless contentions.

There was another procedural issue in the case: the registrar agreement was in Spanish, so technically the case filings needed to be in Spanish. Still, the domain owner’s registrar delayed its response to the UDRP, resulting in the case commencing ahead of the panel knew that the case ought to be in Spanish:

Upon notification of the dispute, the Registrar refused to verify the Respondent’s identity. Upon subsequent request, the Registry did verify Respondent’s identity, and the National Arbitration Forum commenced the case. Then, following the commencement of the case by the National Arbitration Forum, correspondence was received from the Registrar that stated that the language of the Registration Agreement was in Spanish.

In view of this fact, since the pertaining information was received from the Registrar only following the case was commenced, the Panel decides to continue the case with the English-language submission of the Complaint, pursuant to Rule 11 of the Policy.

Of course, Yahoo could have claimed the Yahoo.tel domain name during the .tel sunrise period for regarding $300, much less than the cost of arbitration. Will we see a lot of this scenario — firm doesn’t get domain during sunrise but gets it through arbitration — when fresh top level domains roll out?